Owl You Need is a Good Read

Never Have I Ever

I have a bit of guilt about this review. I got it as an ARC from NetGalley ages ago (okay, just January). Free book? Check. When I used it as my #FridayReads, Katie Heaney, the author, favorited my tweet. Author encouragement? Check. Then, when I rated the book on GoodReads and wrote “3.5 rounded up to 4 stars for GoodReads. Very funny. Longer review coming,” she liked that. I get free books and encouragement; she gets radio silence in return.

“I’ve been single for my entire life. Not one boyfriend. Not one short-term dating situation. Not one person with whom I regularly hung out and kissed on the face.”

So begins Katie Heaney’s memoir of her years spent looking for love, but never quite finding it. By age 25, equipped with a college degree, a load of friends, and a happy family life, she still has never had a boyfriend…and she’s barely even been on a second date. Funny, relatable, and inspiring, this is a memoir for anyone who has ever struggled to find love, but has also had a lot of fun in the process.

Never Have I Ever was hilarious. It routinely turned me into that weird girl laughing at her ereader on the bus or in the break room. Despite the fact that it sounds like a dating memoir, it’s really much more about friendship with a healthy side of funny dating mishaps. Katie is funny, relatable (oh no, I’m parroting the blurb), slightly neurotic, and excellent at telling stories. She’s someone with whom I would want to be friends. Proof:

On online dating profiles: “I am no interests snob. I listed the Harry Potter books in order of how much I liked them in my ‘favorite books’ section, for God’s sake.”

“I have lived twenty-five years in this body by myself, and I feel pretty confident that, by now, my personality is staying as it is. I’m going to continue enjoying plans and Post-its and clean, orderly spaces.”

“She was saying she was sorry that she couldn’t always hang out when I wanted to, but that ‘when you get a boyfriend,’ he becomes the only person you want to spend all your time with….“You’ll know what I mean, when you get one,” she said. So that’s when I gripped my upper jaw and pulled back the skin and muscle of my face to reveal an alien, like the one in the film Alien, and I jumped through the glass in Leigh’s window and ate every boyfriend in the city, and the country, and the world. I swallowed them whole, and many of them cried, and those were the ones I liked best.”

Also, she comes right out and tells us “I’m not trying to be self-righteous about that, but I am literally the best friend a person could ask for…”

I’ll stop throwing quotations from the book at you now. If you’re looking for a light-hearted, funny read, Never Have I Ever is for you! You can find another excerpt on Refinery29.

The Book Owls is a blog devoted to all things books from four book-loving owls from the Midwest. We love our YA books, but branch out into all other genres. Get to know us below!

Madeleine roosts, reads, and writes from the Twin Cities. When not reading, she can be found working in a library.

Just like Nox's name suggests, when it comes reading, the darker the book the better. A NoDak native, Nox currently roosts in Wyoming.

Sonya reads and writes about books from her nest in North Dakota. She can often be found working at the library, reading, watching way too many different TV shows, or cuddling with her ridiculously adorable and badly behaved cat, Leroy.

Zelda may be the smallest owl, but her beautiful magenta plumage makes her the brightest. She loves to read YA fiction and is a lifelong Harry Potter fan.